Many different types of vehicles travel on the surface at airports. These vehicles include aircraft as well as trucks, cars, busses and other vehicles. As these vehicles move around, there are many opportunities for accidents to occur due to the size differences of the vehicles, weather conditions, and the ever increasing volume of such traffic as the accessibility of air travel continues to expand.
Existing systems for managing surface traffic at airports have various short comings. For example, existing systems typically are centered on providing situational awareness and data to pilots of aircraft. The other surface vehicles such as baggage trucks, busses, and other support vehicles are not monitored and their position is not reported to the larger aircraft. Further, these other surface vehicles do not have access to the data on the location and trajectory of the larger aircraft.
Therefore, what is needed in the art are systems and methods for monitoring and controlling the location and activity of surface vehicles, including non-aircraft, to assist the operators of such vehicles to avoid accidents.